Vladimir Putin has directly blamed Britain for a Storm Shadow missile onslaught by Ukraine, which hit and destroyed one of his most sensitive war factories on Wednesday (March 11). A total of six people were killed and 42 were wounded in the devastating attack on the Silicon El microelectronics plant in the border region of Bryansk.
At least 10 of the wounded were in a grave condition, according to Russian sources. Putin’s own war propagandists claimed the dictator looked “impotent” due to the Storm Shadow strikes, with no sign of functioning air defences. Some Russian accounts claim up to seven UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles hit the plant.
“It is obvious that the launch of these missiles would have been impossible without British specialists,” said Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
He added in a chilling warning to Britain: “We are aware of this. We know this very well, and we are, of course, taking it into account. »
Peskov added that in order to prevent « such barbaric actions by the Kyiv regime from continuing, a special military operation is being carried out to demilitarise Kyiv and deprive it of the ability to carry out such barbaric strikes.
“This is one of the objectives.”
The plant is crucial for supplying hi-tech microelectronic components to some of Putin’s deadliest missiles. They include Iskander ballistic missiles, S-300, S-400 and Pantsir air defence systems and Bulava submarine-launched nuclear missiles.
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Putin’s war analysts expressed horror at the clinical attacks taking out key military targets and complained this made the Kremlin dictator look “impotent”.
“It was a blow to our image,” complained the military Welders Telegram channel, one of many to express outrage over the Ukrainian strikes which came as the world was focused on the Middle East war.
“Everyone has either forgotten about the [Russian] red lines for the use of NATO weapons deep inside Russia, or we must now escalate the situation, remembering them. The goal of the Ukrainian-British provocation is to expose the Russian leadership as impotent. »
Earlier in the war, Putin had said attacks by Western missiles on Russian territory amounted to a “red line”, yet this is the latest of multiple strikes by Ukraine using NATO-supplied firepower.
Russia says that Western – and in this case British – specialists are needed to target the missiles on targets on Putin’s territory, and that this is tantamount to a declaration of war on Moscow.
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